The dreaded 'WALL'

I always tell my students to expect to hit a wall that they will have to work work to break through. Often times they progress quickly in the beginning, then they hit some more advanced rhythm and bam! they're stuck. They can't play the song with the same amount of effort that the previous songs required. They must push themselves to a new level, connect new parts of their brain that have never connected before. After you break through the wall the new technique you learned seems simple and you wonder what made it so hard.

I feel like musicianship and songwriting is full of these walls. I have broken through most of them with the passion of youth. I didn't have to work so hard to get through as I do now. Now I hit a wall and get what I call writer's block. I have written songs using my new skills, pushed myself, now what? I have no desire to just write the same song with new words or slightly varied chords. I hear SO MANY SONGS and I think, that sounds like 1,000 songs I've heard before. I want my songs to musically lead your ear (and heart, and maybe mind) to a new place. I want you to be surprised by what comes next, but not bothered by it. I want it to feel familiar or identifiable, but not redundant.

I am now brushing up my chord knowledge and improvisation skills. I used to feel like my instinct was enough, but through the years I've realized it isn't. There are more avenues I haven't been down. I don't utilize augmented chords. I don't know what mode of scale goes best over what chord. I have stumbled upon these things and developed some good habits (and I'm sure some not so good ones) but I believe that to push deeper into songwriting as art I need to have a good, or better yet great, grasp of it's foundations.

Basically I've hit a wall that is bigger than any I've come across before. I feel like I don't really have the time to work through it. That depresses me. I feel like I am either on the precipice of artistic death or the edge of an ocean of artistic discovery. Do I have the power to choose?

I am also constantly frustrated with the limits of my voice. That deserves it's own blog. I can't really change it, but I think I can learn to bring out it's good qualities. Or learn to live it.